I start the morning out — as I usually do — by spending time reading God’s Word, journaling, and writing in my Blessings Journal.

Then, it was time to get some blogging work done. Monday mornings are always busy because I take Sundays off and there’s always some catch-up work to do.

I drafted some deal posts, answered some emails, scheduled some social media posts, and responded to some comments. About then, Jesse walked in the door… and well, things didn’t go so well for the next 45 minutes.

You see, we had some decisions to make about some things and I needed to know answers this morning. As we started discussing things, I said a few things in a wrong way, he said a few things in a wrong way, and we both misinterpreted what the other person said.

Pretty soon, we were in the midst of a heated argument over something that really wasn’t that big of a deal… but it sure felt like a big deal at the time!

We’ve learned to — mostly! — keep talking when things get heated as we usually can resolve things and get back on the same page. It sometimes takes extra time and effort and a willingness to bite one’s tongue and actually listen to the other party, but it’s rare that we don’t finally calm down and resolve the issues.

It may have taken 45 minutes, but it was worth it as we worked through some things, got back on the same page, and both asked forgiveness. Marriage is hard work some days, but I’m so grateful to be married to a man who is willing to work through and work on these things together.

After our heated discussion, I got the kids up and they made oatmeal and bacon and eggs for breakfast while I unloaded the dishwasher and made a fruit salad for dinner.

I helped Silas with his school while the girls finished up their breakfast.

They both read a book together while eating their breakfast. 🙂 I love how these girls can never get enough of books and good stories!

We started The Green Ember today and, so far, we were quite impressed with it. I’ll let you know what we think of it when we’re farther into the story, but if today’s response and engaged audience is any indication of how it’s going to be, I think this may be a favorite book for us.

While I read aloud, the girls practiced drawing. (This was Kaitlynn’s — in case you couldn’t guess!)

{And this was Kathrynne’s. I love how their styles and personality comes out so clearly in their drawing!}

Once we were finished with Morning Time, the kids got busy on their Daily Lists. I love how helpful they’ve become in the last few years. Between the three of them and the chores they do on a regular basis, the house stays quite orderly, clean, and picked up.

While they were working on their chores, I tidied up my room and helped oversee their chores and make sure they stayed on task. (They sometimes need a few gentle reminders to stay on task or to finish a job well!)

This little guy got all of his school and chores done early, so he got to go out and play baseball with Daddy — one of his favorite things to do.

Kaitlynn gets to do a handwriting page or write a card every day. She almost always opts for writing a card as she loves to make and write cards for others. I love to see her creativity shine!

Kaitlynn has also been working on this fairly detailed paint by number project. I love to see her developing such attention to detail!

The girls finished up all their chores and Daily List projects and then started in on their independent work while I handed the reins over to Jesse and then buckled down to finish my list for the day.

I had planned to head to our office space to work in the afternoon, but I was still in my yoga pants, hadn’t had a chance to exercise yet, and still needed to tackle the closets. So I decided to just work from home in the afternoon since Jesse was going to be taking the kids to swimming for a few hours.

After they left for swimming, I finally had a chance to hop on the treadmill and get in my daily run and then headed to tackle this closet. It wasn’t quite as bad as last week’s closets, but it definitely needed some help!

Much better!

I made myself a snack-y lunch (never mind that it was almost 4 p.m.!) and sat down to get some more blogging/business work done.

Jesse and the kids arrived home around 5 p.m. and we got ready to go grill out with friends. We brought marinated chicken and fruit salad and enjoyed an evening of laughter, heart-to-heart talks, and lots of yummy food.

All in all, it was a good day. And I’m heading to bed fairly early so that hopefully I can wake up a little earlier tomorrow. 🙂

Sounds like a great day!!! I love that you start your day off with prayer/reflection/gratitude. I need to work on that.
I got NO cleaning done today, but I did catch up on paying bills, making phone calls, and organizing paperwork.

My day went pretty well! I’ve decided to clean out and organize the small linen pantry in our bedroom, next to the bathroom. It’s filled with towels and stockpiled shampoo, deodorant, etc., and I think I’ve convinced my husband to buy a towel rack for the bathroom to store those towels. That’ll leave me tons of room to organize my stockpile (And hopefully add to it!)

By the way, is your daughter eating her breakfast with a measuring cup? That’s awesome! 😛

Talk about productive! You are accomplishing much. Also, I want to say thanks for your posts on “your day!” They’ve been inspiring me.

I am a person of lists, checking off my lists and always thinking about what’s next! Lately, I am trying to be even more organized with this because I’ve been starting my blog the last few months (which as you know is a lot of work!) and wanting to be sure I still make lots of time for my husband, cook and prepare good meals each day, keep up with cleaning and all else in our home. (not to mention our family, friends and church!)

You’re ideas and podcast that offered the 20 minute action plan have helped me. I’m organized but realized I could do it even better so YAY and PG! Thanks for your inspiration. Blessings to you today.

LOVE snacky lunches. My favorites have meat, cheese, veggies and hummus on the plate. My yesterday didn’t go quite as planned. After I got home from my run I was greeted with a stack of mail that had 2 items in it that required errands done right now for them. Then as I was getting ready to head out and do them my son broke his glasses. So I told all three we would have an errand afternoon together and forget about school. We hit the library, the post office, the pharmacy, the bank and finally walmart for eye glass repair and a round of chocolate treats. Even though it ended up being 2 hours out of my day I had not planned we really had a great time together and I praised God for it, when your kids are 12,14 and 19 you start to realize spending the entire afternoon together doing errands is rare and becoming rarer . Time together is treasured .

Another day not gone as planned here too, but a lot of intentional progress was made.

I block my cleaning tasks into 2 parts, tidy/laundry and deeper projects, both in the morning. Because I didn’t wake up on time yesterday I swapped my prayer time for the deeper cleaning tasks (including the closet).

Next I spent quite a bit of time strategizing a shopping trip to Target. I saved over $33, more than a third of what I ended up spending. I’m also working on a new rock bottom price list. I haven’t had one of these in a couple of years because of the rapidly changing grocery prices- I just gave up. I was inspired by Ruth’s book ( which I finished last night!)

After a nice late afternoon nap I accomplished everything on my evening list. I started the book Bread and wine. I desire to invite people over more.

I see your Erin condren notebook. I was thinking of creating one for my oldest daughter to use for her last year in college.

Thank you *so* much for sharing! I love that you bring us into your life, it really gives me strength and hope. I must ask you, how did you both come to the conclusion that “We’ve learned to — mostly! — keep talking when things get heated as we usually can resolve things and get back on the same page. ” ??? I think it is a great communication rule and I want to apply it myself as I think it may help us over come similar mis communication type arguments. Thank you in advance!

It took us about 7 years of marriage and doing it wrong a lot to finally realize that (for us, at least), staying and working through issue even when we’d really want to just walk away and be upset at the other person all day, is a much more effective way to communicate and resolve conflict. After 5 years of doing it this way, I can tell you that it works SO much better for us.

One thing that helps us is to say something like, “I heard you say this and it felt like this…” Clearly communicating what we think the other person said or what we interpreted them to say or how it hurt us when they said it instead of jumping to conclusions or misinterpreting what they said and becoming all upset over it really helps us to cut through the misunderstandings and get to the bottom of the conflict so that we can resolve it together.

Isn’t it funny how arguments always happen over the simple things. I’ve been married for 9 years and it seems we never bicker about important things. Stress and exhaustion seem to cause silly arguments. It’s great you and Jesse can stay and talk it out. For us that’s not always a great idea. I desire to talk it out but he needs time to sort through his feelings and it works best if I give him space to think. Ladies, don’t feel bad if your husband needs “time” to sort it out. Sometimes cooler heads prevail.

My day is going great. My laundry is halfway done, gone through my emails and did a bit of blogging and giveaway promotion. I will also be meeting a couple friends for lunch and Bible study later this afternoon. It should be great! Thanks again for the inspiration 🙂

And yes, marriage can be hard on some days. But we get through our issues with a calm spirit and proper communication. 🙂

Nice to I’m not the only one that has lunch near 4 some days! My day did not go as planned. My 5 year old wouldn’t stop asking for my attention, so I decided to spend time with him instead. It was nice and I’m glad I stopped, but I’ll have to make up for lost chore time.

Are you referring to our Meaty Monday group? Sadly, that group is no longer meeting regularly due to too many commitments with all those who were apart of it. However, it sparked the idea of us starting a smaller group and we started meeting with a few families who live in our area at least 2-3 times per month on Mondays. We still need an official name for our group, but as mentioned above in the post, meeting with these families regularly has been such a blessing to us!

Ugh…so wish I could have gotten some cleaning done. As a mom I often think I can outrun the sicknesses my kids get forever, and sometimes I can, but not this time. Achy, fever, tired, headache…the cleaning will have to wait. Alas, I am human.